


Privacy

by FortuneSurfer



Category: Per qualche dollaro in più | For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27494395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortuneSurfer/pseuds/FortuneSurfer
Summary: Written for my friend.
Relationships: El Indio/"Manco" | The Man with No Name
Kudos: 5





	Privacy

Manco tunes out the sounds of the tavern, the frivolous music, and the cheering, acutely aware of just one thing in the moment when he takes his bottle to make another sip. It’s the gaze of Indio, who’s watching him from his seat right next to him. His calm expression is intense as always but now also unreadable. Manco expects him to relate him an idea when he finishes his whiskey, just as Niño warned him at the beginning of the evening. (“Be ready, Indio is visited by all kinds of ideas when he goes quiet.”)

Having emptied his bottle, Manco smirks at Indio, meeting his attention to himself with a secret spark of warm and tender mockery in his eyes. They have had too many diversions and other things to do at the military posts in the area around the reservation and too little time for just the two of them over the course of the last couple of weeks.

Next second it turns out that Indio is thinking the same thing: he covers Manco’s hand, lying at the table, with his own and quietly and soulfully breathes out a confession: “I miss you, Manco.”

Manco cautiously looks around to check whether others around them can see it. Their men keep having their well-deserved good time. Manco decides that the opportunity is relatively safe and that he deserves this short instance of intimate contact, and so he fights a heavy sentimental feeling that’s almost suffocating him when he says to Indio: “I’m right here with you.” He doesn’t mean just this evening or even their whole business in this part of the Territory, but he doesn’t entirely realize it then.

Indio shakes his head.

“No.” He takes away his hand from Manco’s wrist only to put it on the man’s shoulder when he leans in closer. Drunkenly – although he’s very much lucid for the most part, unlike Indio – Manco doesn’t grasp how compromising they might look for another full five seconds, following every movement of the other. But he quickly comes to senses when a sweet anticipation rises in his chest after Indio’s meaningful words.

“I want to worship you.”

Every desire Indio has is a half-formed intention, and Manco would support this one readily under any other circumstances. He carefully removes the hand of Indio from his shoulder, turning it in a caress in passing; he says, smiling at him and instilling his voice with a sobering hint.

“I would take it, but now seems to be a bad time and bad place for it.”

“Them?” Indio doesn’t even merit his men with a glance, baring his teeth in a daring grin: “What difference do they make?”

His tone is so confidant, and Manco’s trust into Indio’s prudence, which has been tested time and time again, has become so instinctive by now that for a crazy moment he almost accepts the notion. Then he feels Indio’s hand claiming him again, but it‘s resting on his thigh now, and Manco understands that it’s no joke: Indio is about to turn him around and position himself on top of him before sealing any doubts with a wild devoted kiss. Manco knows the man well enough to read it in his pose and his face. Manco recognizes the only way out of it that he is willing to take.

He stands up from his seat and urges Indio to join him standing. He puts a hand around his middle and then intentionally loudly proclaims the reason to the accidental audience:

“Well, looks like you need to empty that stomach immediately, pal. Too much of that fluid fire for a single time.”

Indio gets it and laughs, embracing him and also embracing the role that he’s been given.

Nobody sees them for the rest of the evening.


End file.
